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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
King is such a force for good in our country, and a stalwart defender of free expression worldwide. It's pleasing to have him nearby, at arm's length, atop your bedside table preferably. Though a prior work written shortly after The Shining you can hear his latter-day, matured author's voice. One is in expert hands, here.
Offering salient, recurring themes in horror films and novels beginning in 1950 to about the mid-eighties (in this edition) he is relaxed, informative, and if you don't mind some of his tangents (and I didn't), trust me: everything becomes germane at the end of this study.
Outstanding book for readers and would-be horror writers, Danse Macabre lends King and the other so-called 'New American Gothic' writers a pedigree stemming back to late 18th - early 19th centuries British & German writers.
If you're a horror enthusiast, this work is a must-read.
BONUS: Danse Macabre comes with two appendixes featuring a filmography and bibliography.
Offering salient, recurring themes in horror films and novels beginning in 1950 to about the mid-eighties (in this edition) he is relaxed, informative, and if you don't mind some of his tangents (and I didn't), trust me: everything becomes germane at the end of this study.
Outstanding book for readers and would-be horror writers, Danse Macabre lends King and the other so-called 'New American Gothic' writers a pedigree stemming back to late 18th - early 19th centuries British & German writers.
If you're a horror enthusiast, this work is a must-read.
BONUS: Danse Macabre comes with two appendixes featuring a filmography and bibliography.
informative
slow-paced
This was Stephen King’s college class on horror fiction, ranging from movies, to tv, and books. He wrote it in ‘80 when he was 33. It was real weird to hear him as a young man, he was more vocal about his negative thoughts. I really do think he just took his notes from the class he taught and turned it into a book. It was delightful, but not for everyone. It’s not what I expected, but I enjoyed it. I almost want a #2 covering 80’s through today.
A couple of months ago I labeled King's 1986 novel It as a "treatise on the genre of horror itself", and while that statement still rings true to me, I think pinning it onto Danse Macabre would perhaps be a bit more accurate. This is King's first full-length foray into non-fiction, and as stated in that aforementioned sentence; this book is quite literally a dissection of horror. Not just the genre of horror in the media (although that does play a significant role), but also the very nature of horror. How and why things scare us, and how those things can be used to construct an entertaining narrative. In many ways reading this does feel like I'm reading a textbook, but King injects enough humor and enough personality into these pages that it avoids ever feeling too dryly academic. There are some personal anecdotes here and there, and King does very often break the fourth wall into a kind of conversational prose with the reader, but despite that, this book manages to remain a very coherent analysis on the many different horror mediums from about the 1950's through the 1970's.
Early on in the book he breaks down the horror genre into some very basic archetypes. He writes at length about the dichotomy between the "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" themes that are present throughout most literature in general (essentially order versus chaos) and how much of modern horror (at least modern by 1981's standards) tends to be rooted in those themes in a very immediate way. On the most basic level possible, a good horror story is when some kind of Apollonian "order" is disrupted by some sort of "Dionysian" chaos. And once you get there, you get about three-to-four different kind of monster archetypes to choose from. The vampire, with its strong sexual undertones and its cold yet passionate thirst for blood, the werewolf with its base-level anger and demonstration of the violent side of humanity, and the "thing without a name" (based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), which is more of a tragic and misunderstood creature than the rest. Obviously not all horror antagonists fit so neatly into these categorizations, but when you think about it broadly, a lot of them do.
And from there, Stephen King essentially dissects the major horror works from radio, cinema, television, and literature from about the years 1950 to 1980. Now, as a complete fault of my own, many (if not most) of the works he discusses in this book are things I have not seen or read, so it's kind of hard to accurately talk about how well he analyses them, but based on the sheer amount of movies I now want to see and books I now want to read, he does a great job. Obviously horror has come a long way since this book was released, so a lot of what he says does come off as somewhat dated. I mean, arguably some of the best horror cinema and horror fiction of all time were released after this book was published, but this is, of course, no fault of Stephen King. I'm sure it wasn't dated at all when this came out, and if anything its "datedness" serves as a kind of time-capsule into the interworkings of the genre at the time of this book's release.
Still however, it is kind of entertaining to see King rail on horror television and how it's the least effective medium for story-telling so many years before it was, arguably, the most effective medium for story telling, and many of the problematic cultural ideas surrounding the horror genre at that time really aren't that prominent anymore. Still though, if there's one thing that can be surmised through the reading of this book, it's that King not only has an extremely astute understanding of why the genre works, but also a wealth of knowledge and advice about how to go about making it work. It's a treatise on the horror genre from the person who is nearly objectively the most successful figure working in the medium, and if horror is something that interests you in any capacity, there is no excuse for not giving Danse Macabre a read.
Early on in the book he breaks down the horror genre into some very basic archetypes. He writes at length about the dichotomy between the "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" themes that are present throughout most literature in general (essentially order versus chaos) and how much of modern horror (at least modern by 1981's standards) tends to be rooted in those themes in a very immediate way. On the most basic level possible, a good horror story is when some kind of Apollonian "order" is disrupted by some sort of "Dionysian" chaos. And once you get there, you get about three-to-four different kind of monster archetypes to choose from. The vampire, with its strong sexual undertones and its cold yet passionate thirst for blood, the werewolf with its base-level anger and demonstration of the violent side of humanity, and the "thing without a name" (based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), which is more of a tragic and misunderstood creature than the rest. Obviously not all horror antagonists fit so neatly into these categorizations, but when you think about it broadly, a lot of them do.
And from there, Stephen King essentially dissects the major horror works from radio, cinema, television, and literature from about the years 1950 to 1980. Now, as a complete fault of my own, many (if not most) of the works he discusses in this book are things I have not seen or read, so it's kind of hard to accurately talk about how well he analyses them, but based on the sheer amount of movies I now want to see and books I now want to read, he does a great job. Obviously horror has come a long way since this book was released, so a lot of what he says does come off as somewhat dated. I mean, arguably some of the best horror cinema and horror fiction of all time were released after this book was published, but this is, of course, no fault of Stephen King. I'm sure it wasn't dated at all when this came out, and if anything its "datedness" serves as a kind of time-capsule into the interworkings of the genre at the time of this book's release.
Still however, it is kind of entertaining to see King rail on horror television and how it's the least effective medium for story-telling so many years before it was, arguably, the most effective medium for story telling, and many of the problematic cultural ideas surrounding the horror genre at that time really aren't that prominent anymore. Still though, if there's one thing that can be surmised through the reading of this book, it's that King not only has an extremely astute understanding of why the genre works, but also a wealth of knowledge and advice about how to go about making it work. It's a treatise on the horror genre from the person who is nearly objectively the most successful figure working in the medium, and if horror is something that interests you in any capacity, there is no excuse for not giving Danse Macabre a read.
Interesting book. Stephen King talking about the horror genre in books, movie and TV. He has recommendations of ones he likes and details as to why. Not a quick King read but it is interesting.
DNF. not really caring to listen to the opinions of sk. turned off after an hour. no rating.
The ramblings of someone abusing substances. Rarely insightful, at times pretty shockingly conservative. It's interesting to hear which books and movies he liked, and why.
At one point he claims that horror is apolitical. lol. lmao. Okay, sure.
At one point he claims that horror is apolitical. lol. lmao. Okay, sure.
Three stars because this book could have been so much shorter. It seems like King's editors had gotten to the point where they were so daunted by the thought of cutting his copy down to size that they just gave up the task all together and published whatever he wrote as-is.
I would love to read a version of this book about King's own works and the movies they became. By the time Danse Macabre was published, 35-year-old Stephen King was firmly established as someone who gets paid to write, having already published Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, Night Shift (short story collection), The Stand, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, and Cujo. In Danse Macabre, he does include comments on some of his stories, but says that his intent is not to discuss his own works here.
From the bottom of p394:
"You're not a writer at all," an interviewer once told me in slightly wounded tones. "You're a goddamn industry. How do you ever expect serious people to take you seriously if you keep turning out a book a year?" Well, in point of fact, I'm not "a goddamn industry" (unless it's a cottage industry); I work steadily, that's all. Any writer who only produces a book every seven years is not thinking Deep Thoughts; even a long book takes at most three years to think and write. No, a writer who only produces one book every seven years is simply dicking off.
And today, at 75 years old, he is still producing at least one book a year, and often more. He'll sleep when he's dead, I suppose.
I would love to read a version of this book about King's own works and the movies they became. By the time Danse Macabre was published, 35-year-old Stephen King was firmly established as someone who gets paid to write, having already published Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, The Shining, Night Shift (short story collection), The Stand, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, and Cujo. In Danse Macabre, he does include comments on some of his stories, but says that his intent is not to discuss his own works here.
From the bottom of p394:
"You're not a writer at all," an interviewer once told me in slightly wounded tones. "You're a goddamn industry. How do you ever expect serious people to take you seriously if you keep turning out a book a year?" Well, in point of fact, I'm not "a goddamn industry" (unless it's a cottage industry); I work steadily, that's all. Any writer who only produces a book every seven years is not thinking Deep Thoughts; even a long book takes at most three years to think and write. No, a writer who only produces one book every seven years is simply dicking off.
And today, at 75 years old, he is still producing at least one book a year, and often more. He'll sleep when he's dead, I suppose.
If you are at all interested in horror movies and books from 1950 to 1980, if you are interested in the mythic underpinnings of the horror genre, or if you just enjoy good, rational and reasonable analysis, this is the book for you. King's literary "voice" is, as always, easy to relate to and even easier to understand. The book does not, however, rely entirely on King's own analysis, as he includes the writings of others and even from the authors in many cases. I've read dozens of books about the horror genre, but this is the one that first got me interested in what made it all work in the first place.
funny
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
It was well written and definitely worth a read if you are a hard core horror fan, but for me I enjoy a good horror book but reading about horror books, movies, and TV shows for 400 some odd pages was a bit much for me, hence the only two stars.